All Unquiet Things

by Anna Jarzab

  “You should really look into password-protecting that thing—it was stupidly easy to get all the information the police are going to need to convict your sorry ass. Keep it. I made copies.”

  “Do you have a death wish? Do you know what I could do to you?”

  “You could get some thugs to beat me up,” I said. “But you won’t.”

  “If that’s what you think, you’re in for a big surprise.” He made a move in my direction, but I didn’t flinch. Honestly, I didn’t find him all that menacing. My knowledge made me feel invincible.

  “We both know I can take you,” I said. “I think I proved that the other day at school.”

  “You’re such a dumb shit,” he sneered. “I could’ve put you in the hospital.”

  “Maybe you should just kill me, like you killed Carly. That would probably be smarter, because I can still talk with broken bones.”

  “I didn’t kill Carly.”

  “Very convincing. I guess I won’t tell the police about your falsified alibi, then. I mean, why stir everyone up if you say you’re innocent?” I was trying to stay calm, but seething anger is a difficult thing to suppress. I turned and started to walk away, but Adam reached out and grabbed the collar of my shirt.

  “What makes you think I lied about my alibi?” he asked. There was barely any color in his face, and I could tell he was afraid.

  “I just had a conversation with Freddie Kramer.” Adam stiffened. I continued, “You might remember him—he’s the guy whose ass you kicked right before Carly died. And he told me that you were done by eight, giving you plenty of time to get to the bridge, meet Carly, and then kill her. I know you had a phone call from her, and I know you left the overlook alone.”

  Adam took a step backward. “No way. Look, man, I cared about Carly. I would never have hurt her.”

  “That’s bullshit!” I shouted. “You weren’t even faithful to her. What about Lucy Miller?”

  “That doesn’t prove that I didn’t care about her. Things with Carly were complicated, and Lucy, she was easy.”

  “I’m sure she was. Probably still is, in fact.”

  “Look, Lucy and I have known each other a long time. She was comfortable and undemanding. I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did. I didn’t want to be with Lucy, I just didn’t know how to be with Carly. But I did care. I might not have treated her great all the time, but that doesn’t mean I killed her.”

  “If you cared so much about her, why did you drag her down to your level, huh? What part of your sick, corrupt little world did you think was good for her?”

  “Dude, calm down,” Adam said. “It was her choice to get involved with me. I didn’t force her to do anything.”

  “You took advantage of her at a point in her life when she was looking for an escape,” I said. “You gave her drugs so you could get what you wanted out of her.”

  “No, I loved her—”

  “No, I loved her! I wanted what was best for Carly. All you wanted was someone to manipulate, someone to do whatever you wanted. That’s not love.”

  Adam stopped protesting. All he said in response was, “I didn’t kill her,” so softly that I barely heard him.

  “Tell it to the police,” I said. “I’m turning you in.”

  “No, Neily, you cannot do that,” Adam begged. “Yes, I admit, I did have my guys beat Freddie up, but I swear I went to Cass’s immediately afterward. My alibi wasn’t a lie; I just neglected to mention the deal because I knew that if the police had me on record as confessing to dealing and roughing up some punk, they’d put me in prison and bring down my entire operation. I would’ve been fucked.”

  “I don’t fucking believe you.” In my mind, I could piece together how it all happened. According to guests at Lucy’s party, Carly and Adam had argued the night before she died. If Freddie was right and Carly called Adam around eight o’clock, she had probably arranged to meet him at the bridge. Carly was planning on exposing him—I was convinced that was what the digital recorder was for; why else would she have had it?—and Adam knew it.

  He could count on his size and strength to overcome Carly if necessary. On his way to the bridge he noticed Enzo Ribelli’s car by the road. Adam knew Enzo well enough to figure out that he was parked near the creek for one reason: to get drunk. In that moment, it all fell into place. He must’ve lost it completely when he saw the tape recorder. The only thing that bothered me was the gun. I could believe that Adam would take it from Enzo’s glove compartment, but how could he know that Enzo had it on him? My head started to spin: Of course—Carly had brought the gun. Carly had her own key to Audrey and Enzo’s house—I had seen her use it once to drop something off when Audrey was at her grandparents’ house—and she knew where Audrey stashed the gun. If she wanted to protect herself, there was no better way than to bring along a firearm. My heart dropped deep into the pit of my stomach. She should’ve known he was big enough to turn it on her.

  As if a dam had burst, my mind flooded with images and I could see instantly what had happened on the bridge: Carly instigated the whole thing. She brought the gun, and she threatened him with exposure, and with her suspicions about Laura Brandt as well. As soon as Adam said something incriminating, she taunted him about the tape, telling him that he was finally going to get what he deserved and that she was going to get her life back. He couldn’t let her turn him in—he was only seventeen at the time, but he was no small-time dope dealer. It was quite possible that they’d try him as an adult. Even if they didn’t, his whole life would be ruined. He couldn’t let her do that to him. He moved to strike her, but she pulled the gun on him; he took advantage of her hesitation and got it away from her, shot her, wiped the gun clean, and threw it and the digital recorder into the river. When he was sure she was dead, he stole the necklace and planted it in the mud next to Enzo’s car before going to Cass’s house and making him agree to give him an alibi.

  “You must’ve been really angry to shoot her four times,” I said quietly.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he snapped. He was a mess of rage, his whole body tense and shaking, like a big cat waiting to pounce, but I knew he wouldn’t touch me. There was fear in his face.

  “Why did Cass lie for you?” I asked.

  “He’s my friend,” Adam said, rubbing his eyes and forehead anxiously. “I didn’t want to get busted for the deal, so I asked him to say I was at his house all night. But I didn’t kill Carly, man, I swear on my life.”

  “Yeah, well, unfortunately that’s not worth very much,” I said.

  “What do you want from me?” he cried.

  “A confession,” I told him. “Pick up the phone, call the police and tell them what you did, and believe me, I’ll be the least of your problems.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” Adam said. “I’m innocent. What is it going to take for you to believe me?”

  “The truth,” I said.

  “I’ve told you the truth!”

  “You didn’t go to Cass’s at all that night, did you? Carly called you. Freddie told me that.”

  “Carly called me back, I admit it.”

  “Called you back?”

  “Yeah. I’d called her a couple of times that day, but she never picked up.”

  “Same with me,” I said, realizing something: “Carly was lying low. Handling things on her own, after all.”

  “What for?”

  I ignored him. “Why wasn’t your phone number on her cell phone’s call log?” I asked. This question had been bothering me. If I’d known they talked before she died, it never would’ve taken me this long to prove it was Adam who killed her.

  “She called me from her home phone. All she said was that she’d left a box of my stuff on my porch and that I was never to speak to her again as long as I lived. I told her I’d call her back, but she’d hung up by then.”

  “What happened after that? Who did you go see?” I went on. “Where did you go if not to the bridge?”

&nb
sp; “I went for a drive.”

  “Where?”

  “San Francisco.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”

  Adam sighed. “Just to clear my head. Lucy kept trying to get ahold of me and I needed some space to process.”

  “Lucy?”

  “Carly found out I was sleeping with Lucy at that last party. It was one of the things we argued about.”

  “And she was upset.”

  “Well, yeah, but not for the reason you’d think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was mad at me because everybody knew but her,” Adam said. “But she wasn’t upset about losing me, because she said she was planning on breaking up with me anyway.”

  “Why?” It was possible that it wasn’t really true. Carly could’ve just been trying to save face.

  “She didn’t say. My guess was to get back together with you.”

  “No way.”

  “Even though she was with me, she never stopped missing you,” Adam said sharply. “She talked about you all the time, always compared me to you. I could tell that she would have gone back to you if she thought she deserved you, but she didn’t. I hated you, plain and simple, and I’ve never stopped.”

  “Is that why you had that kid put those articles in my locker? Just to fuck with my head?” I asked.

  “I wanted you to suffer,” he snarled. “Nobody ever asked how her death affected me. It was all you, getting special treatment and being babied by everybody. Like you were the only person it happened to.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “She was cheating on me, too, you know,” he continued. “I practically caught her at Cass’s School’s Out for Summer party.”

  “She wasn’t cheating. She was raped that night,” I told him.

  “No,” he said hoarsely.

  “Somebody dosed her drink, probably with some of that Special K you’ve been smuggling in from Tijuana. She wrote about it in her diary.” I paused to think. “What else did you argue about?” He said nothing. “Laura Brandt?”

  “I had nothing to do with Laura’s disappearance. I still think she took off on her own.”

  “But you did have the Bean run her off the road?”

  “Just to put a scare in her. I didn’t think she’d have the nerve to pull what she was threatening.”

  “But Carly thought you had her killed, didn’t she?”

  “She did. But she was wrong.”

  “Think back to Cass’s party,” I said. “Lucy said you found Carly alone in a bedroom later that night. Did you just stumble upon her accidentally?”

  “I went looking for her, and when I got to the top of the stairs Cass came up to me, pointed to the bedroom right behind him, and said, ‘Your girlfriend’s passed out in there. You might want to wake her up and get her home.’”

  “Cass?”

  Adam nodded. “He’s always looking out for his friends.”

  I barely heard him. I saw it all for what it really was. “No, he wasn’t. He was stalking Carly, writing her creepy letters. He raped her. And now he no longer has an alibi for her murder,” I said. “How could you not have known?”

  “No,” Adam protested. “He’s my best friend. We protect each other. He did me a favor.”

  “No, you did him one. He took advantage of your desperation for an alibi for the night he shot and killed your girlfriend. Did you ever think to ask him where he was that night? Or did you just accept his offer to perjure himself for you?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Adam insisted. “Cass has always had my back.”

  I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. “I don’t have time to list the countless ways in which you are responsible for what happened to Carly. Do yourself a big fucking favor and go to the police with the truth about your alibi.” I held out my hand. “Give me your gun.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just give it to me!”

  Reluctantly, he went inside, then came back and handed me the gun. It was heavier than I thought, and I had no idea what to do with it or what I planned to use it for. I stared at it blankly and shoved it into Adam’s hand. “Show me.”

  He gaped at me. “You want to take a gun with you but you don’t know how to use it?”

  “Just do it.”

  “This is the safety,” he told me, turning the gun over and pointing to a latch near the trigger with the word SAFE etched into the metal casing. He switched the safety on. “You leave it like this, and don’t you dare put your finger anywhere near the trigger unless you’re willing to shoot something. If you are—and don’t—then switch the safety off, lift, aim, and pull.” He demonstrated. “But like I said—don’t.”

  “Thanks.” I took the gun, trying desperately to keep my hands from shaking.

  “Wait, man, where are you going?” Adam called after me. “There’s something about Cass you should know!”

  I didn’t stop. Audrey was probably with Cass at that very moment.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I was sprawled out on Cass’s unmade bed wearing a T-shirt and a pair of his boxer shorts. Cass stroked my palm with his fingers and smiled at me.

  “Well,” he said, climbing out of bed and grabbing a clean pair of jeans and a shirt from a chair nearby. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes. Don’t take off on me.”

  “I’ll stay right here, I promise.” He kissed me and headed into the adjoining bathroom.

  I didn’t care what Neily believed, I trusted Cass. The afternoon before Neily attacked Adam at school, Cass called my grandparents’ house and asked to speak to me.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to squelch my nerves.

  “You didn’t answer your cell when I called.”

  “I didn’t know what to say.”

  “It’s okay. I just wanted to apologize for kissing you the other day. It was way out of line.”

  “It was. But I forgive you,” I said.

  “Good. Hey, can I come over? I’d like to talk—in person.”

  I hesitated.

  “Audrey?”

  “Yeah. Come over. I’ll be waiting on the porch.”

  He arrived fifteen minutes later and joined me on the porch swing. “What’s up?” he said.

  “Nothing. Just enjoying the last warm days,” I said, leaning my head back.

  “Weather report says the rain is coming. Not really looking forward to dodging idiots on the freeways,” Cass said. We were both looking out across the lawn onto the street, where a couple of kids were playing with their dogs. “What are we going to do about this?” he asked.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Our feelings.”

  “Our feelings?”

  “Pretend all you want, but there was something in that kiss—I know it, and you know it. Acting like those feelings don’t exist is not going to make them go away.”

  “Your friends will never be okay with you and me getting back together,” I pointed out.

  “Oh, who cares? I’m over them. All they want to do is party and hook up. I don’t want that life anymore.” He put his hand over mine.

  “I heard you and Adam had a fight,” I said.

  “He thinks you’re bad news. I told him to go fuck himself.” He smiled and leaned in as if to kiss me, but I pulled away.

  “I can’t do this right now. I have other things I need to focus on,” I insisted.

  Cass’s smile faded. “What, like what happened to Carly? I can help, Aud. I know you say that Neily’s the only person you can trust, but if you just let me in a little you’ll see that you can trust me, too.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who do you think killed Carly?”

  He sat for a while in silence. “Honestly? I think the Bean might have done it.”

  “Why do you say that?” I thought so, too, but I didn’t want to influence him.

  “The Bean
doesn’t have the best track record with girls. He stalked this one girl a few years ago.”

  “He told you he stalked Allison Kessler?” I asked dubiously.

  “Well, not in those words. He told me he was writing her these e-mails but that she wasn’t responding. I was like, ‘Bean, maybe she thinks you’re crazy and that’s why she’s ignoring you.’” Cass laughed. “Poor guy. All he ever wanted was somebody to give a damn about him.”

  “Oh, yeah, poor guy,” I said sarcastically.

  “Same thing with Carly. She was nice to the Bean and he just got totally wrapped up in it, spinning these wild fantasies about how they were going to go away with each other after she graduated and get married—crazy stuff. I tried to talk him into keeping quiet about it, but it got back to Adam and he was pretty pissed off. That’s how the Bean got tossed out of his gang.”

  “How come you didn’t say anything to the police about the Bean being obsessed with Carly?”

  “I thought he was over her.” Cass shrugged. “After Adam kicked him out of the group he stopped talking about it. Besides, the case against your dad seemed rock solid. Who was I to argue with the Empire Valley Police Department?”

  “I found some letters in her family’s safe-deposit box. She thought Neily had written them, but he swears he never did. I think they’re from the Bean.”

  “Really?” Cass asked. “Do you have them here? Can I see them?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Give me a sec.” I went to my room and retrieved the letters. Cass read through them all thoroughly and recognized something.

  “This sounds a lot like those e-mails the Bean sent to Allison. No capitals or punctuation, questionable spelling and grammar …”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said, triumphant. “He was at your School’s Out for Summer party at the end of sophomore year, right? Lucy wasn’t making that up?”

  “No, he was there. Why?”

  “I think Carly was raped that night. I drove her home from the party, but I hadn’t seen her in hours and she was so out of it. I think she might’ve been drugged.”

  Cass ran his hand through his hair. “And you think the Bean raped her?”